Aristotle-to-Ricardo-to-Hayek turn the double play way better than Plato-to-Rousseau-to-Rawls

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Snappy Dinner Party Conversation Material

Here are a few quick snippets for your next outing with friends and family:

First, are you smarter than a Wall Street Occupier? New York magazine surveys Occupy Wall Street:

But how much do the protesters actually know about the economic system that they're fighting to change? To find out, we asked 50 occupiers a series of questions about Wall Street, taxes, and government. The results were mixed. See if you can do better.

In comparison, the Occupy Wall Street protesters complain about the excesses and greed of Wall Street and Banks. Well, over the same time period as the previous table, take a look at how Wall Street and the Banks have performed:

I used to demonstrate a lot myself. In the 1950s and 1960s we marched and picketed for civil rights for black Americans and we accomplished a lot. In the late '60s and '70s we demonstrated to end the war in Vietnam ... My wife and I also danced and screamed and sang for the Black Panther Party. ... But we always had specific goals: voting rights. Equal housing and accommodations. Bringing the troops home.

What are your specific goals? It means zero to be against greed. Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

Ben Stein can bring it home, are you picking up what he is throwing down? Your dinner guests certainly will.

So there you have it, but there just remains one more question: Whois really the Greediest, is it the Federal Government (who takes money by force and makes it by fiat) or capitalists, (who have to make it the old fashioned way)? Sorry, but this is just lost on protesters, so this message is for the people that care about facts, as opposed to Marxists and leftists, who are only confused by facts. As Ben Stein says, Capitalism is:

"... by far the most efficient, responsible way of organizing industrial production there has ever been. It is a billion times more democratic that the Marxist forms of organization some of your speakers are advocating. Marxism is so much uglier than capitalism it's not even in the same universe. Marxism is just systemized envy, violence, and repression."

If capitalism is motivated by greed, then so what? If protesters really wanted to do something about greed and orgiastic spending, they would take power away from the government, not try to grow government. Doh!

Here is what I have learned about Occupy Wall Street Protesters:

Their anger is misplaced, their real beef is with the Federal Government.

....and the rich get richer........and the poor are starving.......What happened to the dreams, hopes and plans of our founding fathers? Let us remember George Bush's roll in destroying the US economy.

Anon -- The dreams, hopes and plans of our founding fathers were dashed to pieces on the rocky shores of the New Deal, Obamacare, the Great Society and all the other liberal wealth-redistribution and socialist schemes.

Did you not see the graphic above of the Obama Legacy? A 30% increase in spending? For what? What did we buy?